


Old Scars Hurt the Worst

by firelord65



Series: Fecky's Whumptober Oneshots [4]
Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Fear Simulations (Divergent), Fire, Gen, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Siblings, Whumptober 2020, collapsed building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26829313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelord65/pseuds/firelord65
Summary: Everyone has one fear that hits the hardest. Eric's comes up to sucker punch him first-off nearly every time.
Series: Fecky's Whumptober Oneshots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950469
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Old Scars Hurt the Worst

When the needle went in, Eric took a sharp breath. Not because it hurt but to prepare for what would come next. He knew every scene that would play out between himself and his psyche in the next ten, twelve minutes. He avoided eye contact with Lauren as she pushed the plunger. It was always easier for him to put the thought of anyone watching well out of his mind. This time it was easier said than done.

Three years had passed since Initiation. This wasn't his first time returning to the landscape of his fears; he'd been required to drill through them a multitude of times in front of his fellow Leaders when he had accepted the call to rise in the ranks. But it was the first time since the world had gone to shit. There was an extra urgency to prove himself, to not slip up.

Having Lauren be the one to administer the serum did help, even if Eric told himself otherwise. When he closed his eyes and felt the world shift artificially beneath his feet he knew that at least one person in the room would be rooting _for_ him rather than against.

Smells hit him the hardest when the simulation took over initially. Smoke, hot and choking, burned in his lungs. Eric nearly always woke up in the ruins of his family's old home. Sweat broke out as his body reacted to the heat and fire that weren't actually there. Throwing a hand over his mouth and nose, Eric turned to find the least damaged section of house where he could slip out safely.

The walls had started to crumble. Beams were bending as they gave out from the heat and flames. Eric followed instinct and history, his path out winding but secure from falling debris for the most part. He didn't dare pause, even in the relative safety of the sturdy door frame at the threshold of the house. It would be the last to fall, remaining among the smoldering remains for hours until the fire teams would knock it down along with any remaining rubble.

Jessie's voice came to him before he could fully depart, high pitched and desperate. "Eric! Dad! Mo-o-o-m!" Jessie cried helplessly. Eric hated himself for how his head turned so instinctively to seek out his sister. His chest was tight. It was hard to breathe. He needed to leave but how could he ignore her?

It wasn't fair. Eric felt his feet take too many steps forward, back into the cataclysm of flames that he would never survive. That Jessie would never survive. He knew it. But he couldn't stop himself all the same. Damn the time penalty. Damn his score.

Damn this fire that took everything from his family.

The hardest thing to learn, to accept, was that not every situation could be won. He choked on smoke for nearly a minute, eating into his precious time as he wrenched open the door to the stairs. Flames roared to lick at his hands and face, greedy and demanding. He had only given them more fuel as they surged into the relatively untouched living room. The stairs behind the door were fully engulfed and falling away. Jessie's voice was louder here; she had to be just above him in the hall, perhaps taking shelter in the door frame there like they've been taught in Lower Levels. "He-e-e-e-lp!" Jessie screamed before being overtaken by a coughing fit. Eric opened his mouth to respond and immediately covered it with his hand as his lungs seized.

The fact was, there wasn't anything that Eric could do to get to her now. Not without a ladder or a miracle. He took one more futile look around the collapsing building for a way to get back upstairs to his trapped sister. There wasn't one. Not this time. Not last. Not next. And certainly not eight years ago.

Cursing his own stupidity and inability, Eric wrenched himself back through the ruins of his family's living room. His chest heaved as he coughed and coughed. Back outside, he dropped to his knees and forced his eyes shut. He couldn't stop listening, though, even with his hands clamped tightly over his ears. Jessie's shouts and pleas were audible over the crackling of the fire and the screaming sound of the sirens as E-call's fire responders arrived on site too late.

Trying to take deep, calming breaths, Eric repeated silently his mantra: this wasn't real. Jessie had died a long time ago. This wasn't real. There was nothing he could do, now or back then, to save her.

His reward was for his sister's voice to cut out at the same time the temperature about him dropped to subzero; waves overtook him instead. He floundered a moment too long, feeling the salt of the sea waves wash over him. It wouldn't do anything to the tears on his face in the fear landscape room, but it did help center and ground him for what he had to keep doing.

He had eleven more fears to go. Jessie was gone. Long gone. He had to keep moving, keep proving that he would learn from the worst of the worst to survive another day.


End file.
